Future of kids held to ransom by union
IWONDER how parents feel this week having heard Mary Bousted, the National Education Union boss, describe their kids as “mucky germ spreaders, who touch everything, who cry, who wipe their snot on your trousers or on your dress”. How do they feel when they hear Kevin Courtney, the union’s other boss, talking about “threats” to head teachers and putting damaging stuff on social media about how they’re risking kids’ lives by wanting to re-open schools?
Do they actually believe the NEU’s stance is about the safety of their kids when they hear Bousted openly boasting that refusing to open schools on June 1 is just “a negotiating position”? This is a woman who’s supposed to be invested in the education of the nation’s children yet she’s made it clear she regards them as mere bargaining chips in her union’s blatant attempt to destroy a government it despises, not caring that they’re also destroying the life chances of future generations in the process.
Bousted’s comments came as it was announced more than 2,220 English primary schools will defy Government plans to reopen on June 1 despite the BMA and almost every scientist who’s been asked saying that, with the right precautions, it’s safe to do so. Which is why NEU bosses, who appear to want a castiron guarantee that no one will ever catch coronavirus at any school, are starting to look silly, uninformed and more than a bit lily-livered. Primary schools all over Europe ARE re-opening thanks to a mountain of evidence that says they can and should.
So, they can’t keep pedalling the safety argument when scientists say they’re wrong.A new study – based on the best evidence of 47 other studies – says children are at an unbelievably low risk of catching Covid-19 and are extremely unlikely to spread it to families or teachers. So why are teaching unions, which have been demanding access to “reliable evidence” and have now got it, ignoring it?
In Sweden a million kids go to school every day and there have been no outbreaks among children or teachers. Out of seven million five to 14-year-olds in England and Wales, so far there has been only ONE death certificate with coronavirus marked on it.
So what’s this really about? Is it about money – is the NEU exploiting the pandemic to get more? Or is it simply making political capital out of the fear around coronavirus to destroy this government, ignoring the educational carnage that will result from their actions? I’m not saying teachers should be put at risk. But teachers are clever people. They understand research and evidence. So why are they ignoring the evidence that says, with proper precautions, they can return to the classroom?
And why is Boris letting these militants call the shots? He’s telling the rest of us to get back to work but he’s letting the teaching unions dictate how and when schools should reopen. And he’ll pay for being so weaselly with my vote – and millions of others – if he lets the unions dictate how we come out of this crisis.
I wonder if those teachers seemingly paralysed by fear at the prospect of returning to work have thought about the risks our doctors, nurses, carers, bus and ambulance drivers faced every day (and still face) when the crisis was at its height?What would have happened if they’d offered up a list of 169 health and safety demands like the teaching unions have before they tended to people in need?
Do Mary Bousted and her colleagues not feel just the teeniest bit dirty and ashamed in the face of such courage and selflessness?
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TRAINEE police constable, Jamie Larman has been thrown out of the force after just one week for stealing seven full English breakfasts from the canteen. Larman, who was working for Thames Valley Police, took the meals knowing he wasn’t allowed to have them as he lived less than 20 miles away.
A misconduct hearing was told the man who’d also been caught nicking food on a police community support officer’s training day (has no one told him he can buy food in supermarkets?) had been overheard saying: “I’m not entitled to this but I should be as I live just outside the boundary.”
Makes you wonder why Larman ever imagined he was a good fit for the police. It’s like saying, “I know I stole £100,000 that wasn’t mine – but I think I should have it anyway.” Thank God he was kicked out before he made it on to the streets. I’m not sure with his skewed concept of right and wrong he’d recognise a criminal if he fell over one.